With more walls to show more work than the 2013 festival, this year's event centres around a four-week photographic exhibition held at Wild Island in Salamanca Place as a part of National Science Week events.

A panel of judges will review the work on show this week before announcing the winners on Friday with prizes such as camera gear, outdoor equipment and printing services on offer.

The photography awards have several categories including panoramas, auroras, startrails, bioluminescence, night sky, and Antarctica as well as a section for young photographers.

When I went to pick up the camera I was borrowing, there was a big aurora happening and I've been hooked ever since.

Loic Le Guilly

"We went through a rigorous process to select the entrants to start with and we came up with these 25 images," photographer and one of the judges of the exhibition Loic Le Guilly said.

An aurora chaser himself, Mr Guilly said the exhibition celebrates all of the good work done by many Tasmanian photographers.

Mr Le Guilly said there were many reasons why Tasmanian skies were special for photographers with the orientation of the stars, the clean air and being closer to the South Pole allowing for more chances of Aurora Australis viewing.

"I think a lot of people have seen auroras, particularly in the northern hemisphere, but in recent years people have realised you can see them in Tassie as well — especially with modern technology and modern cameras, it gets easier to see them and photograph them," he said.

"Tassie's just a great place because there's not a lot of light pollution compared to other places like on mainland Australia."

There have been aurora sightings in Tasmania since the exhibition opened last week and although they are unpredictable, Mr Le Guilly said winter was usually a better time of the year to see and shoot them because the nights were longer.

Social media helping photographers

Mr Le Guilly is a member of the Aurora Australis Tasmania group, which was created in 2011 by Margaret Sonnemann, and he said it had grown rapidly over the years.

"Because of social media, people are a lot more aware of it and it's easier to know when it's happening," he said.

"When I joined the group in 2012 I think there were a few hundred members from memory and a year later we were up to 5,000 members when the first festival happened.

"This year, in 2015, we're over 23,000 members so it's quite a big movement."

Like many other photographers, Mr Le Guilly was first introduced to photographing auroras when he borrowed a camera from a friend to do some night photography.

"Sure enough that same night when I went to pick up the camera I was borrowing there was a big aurora happening and I've been hooked ever since," he said.